The other day, the garbage company made available to the neighborhood three of those large open-top refuse containers for disposal of large items. This was a perfect opportunity to junk some of the things we had laying around the house.

Metal pipes, broken computer, broken vcr, old clothes–I bet they would have accepted the kitchen sink if asked.

Anyhow, we had purchased a new television set a few years ago and this was as good a time as any to make the actual replacement.

For my entire life, I have had only three television sets. My first television set had the loop and bunny ears physically attached. The televesion set also had wood side paneling which seemed to be prevalent during those times. A remote control did not come with the set. Instead, it had these metal buttons next to the channel numbers. It’s not like today where you would press 0-4-0 to get to channel 40. Instead, each button is assigned a channel which you can set via a search button hidden behind the control panel. The numbers next to the buttons weren’t engraved into the set either, instead they were on a strip which can be pulled out so the owner can organize the channels however he wished. I remember there only being a handful of channels. My favorite channel at that time was channel 44. I don’t remember the station name but they eventually became the UPN. They usually had the best cartoons after school.

The next television set I had was the typical projection set found in every home in the 90s. There was a socket in the back of the television set to either attach bunny ears or a cable connection. It had the keypad on front to select the channel by digit and connections available for a VCR or DVD player. Lately though, the television set had become haunted. The buttons did not respond at first touch any longer, I needed to rock my finger side-to-side to get the buttons to work. At times, when I arrived on a channel, the TV would continue to press 00 for a good minute afterwards which makes the screen pause and refresh itself.

Enough was enough. It was time for the TV set to go. I would have liked to wait until the HD thing came to pass before replacing the TV but there is only so much a guy can take before the annoyance drives him to do crazy things.

So we replaced that one with this one:

I have many complaints about the UI design but none of that matters. What matters is that I have new Cable channels to visit! The television set before was only able to reach up to channel 65, but the new one is able to get into the mid 80s. Now I have the most awesome channel ever! Sci Fi!! All the Stargate reruns are at my fingertips. No more waiting for them to be released on Hulu. I can watch them now at my leisure. w00t w00t!